Friday shouldn’t be too bad. Most of the rain that started last night should be done now but it will start up again over night and last through the weekend with a few rests here and there.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning look like our coldest yet with a possibility of hitting the freezing mark. Just a heads up, Halloween is looking increasingly wet. It will still be a few days before we can be very sure but right now we have what looks like a strong bout of rain coming on the last days of October, ending Halloween night.

…….

Getting back to what seems to be a North Amearican fascination with the 2011 weather forecast,the NOAA has released their forecast calling for a cold and snowy winter in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Jeff Masters has a very in depth analysis of that forecast and the issue in a wider context. It is an extremely informative read… In short though, a growing amount of research (including this research just released yesterday) is showing that other atmospheric processes in the North Atlantic are having a significant effect on North American weather, and that record low summer and fall sea ice in the Arctic as well as the record low sunspot activity are likely influencing those North Atlantic patterns. Sunspot activity has increased after the low of the last 11 year Sunspot cycle but sea ice has not so the north atlantic atmospheric pattern will likely still heavily influence North American weather. So, the old rules of thumb around what happens during a La Nina and El Niño event may be less relevant.

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2 thoughts on “Rainy weekend – Authoritative post on Winter”

Interesting article. Fascinating to learn just how complicated forecasting can be. There now seems to be consistency on a colder than normal winter here, but the precipitation is still a question mark depending on the source. I see we might hit 0 this week though!